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Fire departments and emergency medical services across Illinois are to receive more than $2.2 million in grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin announced the grants, saying they are meant to fund vehicle acquisition, operations and safety. Durbin’s office says there will be 27 grants. The money comes through the Department of Homeland Security’s Assistance to Firefighters Grants Program.

Durbin says the money will help to ensure firefighters “are equipped with the best tools possible to do their jobs well.”

Among the grants, the Aurora Fire Department is to receive more than $412,000, the Elkville Fire Department is to receive $190,000 and the Deer Creek Fire Protection District is to receive more than $146,000.

– Associated Press

Grants available for gardeners who want to help community

11:36 AM CST on Thursday, February 4, 2010
By REBECCA PERRY / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News

If you’d like to make gardening a part of 2010, there’s help out there to make it happen more easily and economically – especially if you have a vision for sharing the experience with children and the bounty with the hungry. Consider applying for one of the following gardening grants or awards, primarily designed to assist school and community gardening groups.

Welch’s Harvest Grant

Deadline: Sunday. Open to classrooms K-8 with a minimum of 15 students.

Teachers who would like their students to see clearly that carrots and beans don’t magically sprout from grocery store bins are welcome to apply for these grants sponsored by Welch’s and Scholastic Inc. Two schools from each state will be awarded gardening supplies to help them grow their own fruit and vegetables. The award packages range in value from $250 to $1,000. Winning schools may choose an indoor or an outdoor gardening package; both contain a variety of tools, seeds and educational materials. The application is available at www.scholastic.com/harvest.

Project Orange Thumb

Deadline: Feb. 19. Open to a variety of groups.

All kinds of groups – youth groups, camps, clubs, community garden groups, schools – that have a garden or gardening project geared toward community involvement, neighborhood beautification, sustainable agriculture or horticulture education are eligible to apply for this grant sponsored by Fiskars. Last year’s winners included Jubilee Park Community Garden, where kids helped grow squash, zucchini and okra in the shadow of downtown Dallas. This year, 22 grant recipients in the United States and Canada will receive up to $1,000 worth of Fiskars gardening tools and up to $1,000 worth of gardening-related materials. Get all the details at http://www.fiskars.com/content/garden_en_us/Garden/ ProjectOrangeThumb.

2010 Mantis Award

Deadline: March 1. Open to nonprofit organizations.

Putting in a community or school garden might go a whole lot faster with a tiller to break up heavy clay soil. The National Gardening Association will select 25 applicants to receive a Mantis tiller-cultivator, choosing between a gas engine or electric motor. Past winners have included schools, churches, correctional facilities, youth camps and many others. Apply at http://www.kidsgardening.com/grants/mantis-criteria.asp.

Captain Planet Foundation

Quarterly deadlines: March 31, June 30, Sept. 30 and Dec. 31. Open to nonprofits working with children ages 6 to 18.

This foundation has funded a variety of environmentally oriented programs, including a watershed workshop project at Heard National Science Museum and Wildlife Sanctuary in McKinney and a wildlife identification and watchable nature trail at P.M. Akin Elementary in Wylie. But organic gardens, vegetable gardens, greenhouses and other gardening projects are often grant recipients, too. Awards range from $250 to $2,500.

Nonprofit organizations with a garden plan that focuses on hands-on involvement, helps young people develop planning and problem-solving skills, and includes adult supervision are welcome to apply at http://captain planetfoundation.org/de fault.aspx?pid=3&tab=apply.

Nature Hills Nursery Green America Awards

Deadline: April 1. Open to nonprofit charitable or educational organizations.

Omaha-based Nature Hills Nursery has three big prizes – $2,500, $1,500 and $1,000 in plants – for groups that are greening their communities, parks, schools and public places by planting trees, shrubs and other plants. Winners of each of the three prizes are able to select any combination of trees, fruit trees, shrubs, perennials and vegetable seeds that the Web-site-only retailer offers. Plants from Nature Hills are helping last year’s second-place winner, Homewood Heights Community Garden in Austin, turn its gathering space at the front of the garden into a certified wildlife habitat. Apply at http://www.naturehills.com/green_amer ica_awards_application.aspx.

Annie’s Grants for Gardens

Deadline: Rolling. Open to schools and nonprofits.

Annie’s Homegrown, a Napa, Calif.-based company selling organic and all-natural comfort foods and snacks, offers small grants to community gardens, school gardens and other educational programs that connect children directly to gardening. Grants of up to $250 are available to buy gardening tools, seeds or other gardening supplies. Visit http://www.annies.com/grants_for_gardens for more information and application instructions.

FTPF Orchard Grants

Deadline: Rolling. Open to nonprofits, public schools and government entities.

The Fruit Tree Planting Foundation doesn’t just offer grants of fruit trees. The foundation will provide fruit trees and shrubs, organic soil amendments, equipment, planting volunteers, on-site orchard design work, horticultural workshops and aftercare training to a group selected for an orchard donation. The recipient must own the planting site and pledge to care for the trees and shrubs and utilize them for a charitable purpose. The foundation also has a Fruit Tree 101 program specifically for schools; this grant creates edible orchard classrooms at public schools of all levels. See http://www.ftpf.org and http://www.ftpf.org/fruittree101.htm.

Garden Crusader Awards

Deadline: June 1. Open to individuals.

If you know a gardener of any age who is changing the world through gardening, why not nominate him or her for a Gardener’s Supply Co. Garden Crusader Award? Five winners in each category – education, feeding the hungry, urban renewal and restoration – receive Gardener’s Supply gift certificates worth up to $1,000; a grand-prize winner receives $2,500 in cash and a $2,500 gift certificate. Make a nomination at http://press.gardeners.com/crusaderform.aspx.

Operation Green Plant

Deadline: Rolling. Open to community groups.

America the Beautiful Fund accepts applications for its free seed program throughout the year. Groups can get 100 to 1,000 packets of vegetable, flower and herb seeds. There is a shipping and handling charge of $14.95 for the first 100 packets; each additional set of 100 packets is $5. See http://www.america-the-beautiful.org/free_seeds/index.php.

The city of Sarasota is preparing a federal grant request for $25 million to build a streetcar system.

The proposal would place a fixed rail on Main Street from Kane Plaza to Marina Jack.

A group called the Sarasota Streetcar Initiative has proposed a second route that would run between Sarasota’s cultural attractions, running from Van Wezel Performing Arts Center to Marie Selby Botanical Gardens.

However, City Engineer Alex DavisShaw said the grant is not large enough to include that cultural route.

The deadline to submit the grant request is Feb. 8.

WASHINGTON – High-speed rail projects in California, Florida and Illinois are among the big winners of $8 billion in grants to be announced Thursday by the White House — the start of what some Democrats tout as a national rail-building program that could rival the interstate highways begun in the Eisenhower era.

Thirteen rail corridors in 31 states received funds. The White House, which supplied a list of the grants to reporters late Wednesday, billed the program as “high-speed rail,” but only the California project calls for trains with maximum speeds exceeding the 200 mph achieved by some trains in Europe and Asia.

Some of the money will go toward trains with top speeds of 110 mph, while others — such as the $400 million allotted to Ohio to connect Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati by rail — will go toward trains traveling no faster than 79 mph.

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are expected to pitch the program as a boost to the economy at a town hall meeting Thursday in Tampa, Fla. A half-dozen Cabinet members and other senior administration officials were scheduled to fan out across the country for rail events Thursday and Friday. The White House said rail projects will create or save thousands of jobs in areas like track laying, manufacturing, planning, engineering and rail maintenance and operations.

Except for Amtrak’s Acela line between Boston and Washington, there are no high-speed trains in the U.S. and no domestic high-speed rail industry. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and members of Congress have acknowledged they expect much of the expertise and equipment to be supplied by foreign companies.

Congress set aside the $8 billion as part of the economic recovery plan enacted last year. The money is just a start. Last year, Obama asked Congress in his budget request for an additional $1 billion a year for five years. Congress for this year approved another $2.5 billion that remains to be awarded. And Obama is expected to ask for yet more rail funds when his budget is unveiled next week.

Also, LaHood has hinted that some of the $1.5 billion allotted in the stimulus plan for discretionary transportation projects may go toward high-speed rail.

Japan launched the first high-speed trains in 1964, and France and other European countries followed in the 1980s and 1990s. China has announced plans to expand its high-speed rail system to a network of more than 16,000 miles by the year 2020 and has spent more than $50 billion.

Projects awarded the largest grants include:

• California: $2.3 billion to begin work on an 800-mile-long, high-speed rail line tying Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay area to Los Angeles and San Diego.

• Florida: $1.25 billion to build a rail line connecting Tampa on the West Coast with Orlando in the middle of the state, eventually going south to Miami.

• Illinois-Missouri: $1.1 billion to improve a rail line between Chicago and St. Louis so that trains travel up to 110 mph.

• Wisconsin: $810 million to upgrade and refurbish train stations and install safety equipment on the Madison-to-Milwaukee leg of a line that stretches from Minneapolis to Chicago.

• Washington-Oregon: $590 million to upgrade a rail line from Seattle to Portland, Ore.

• North Carolina: $520 million for projects that will increase top speeds to 90 mph on trains between Raleigh and Charlotte and double the number of round trips.

By spreading the $8 billion among so many states, Obama is ignoring the advice of transportation experts and high-speed rail advocates who said the best way to build continuing political support for the program would be to concentrate on two or three grants large enough to get a high-speed line up and running. Once that happens, they reasoned, other parts of the country would lobby for more money to build their own lines.

“We can’t try to touch as many political bases as we can with that money. We have got to do major projects,” Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said in a recent interview.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., disagreed. “You really have to look at local and regional approaches to create the political will to expand the program,” he said.

Far more students in England received no financial support this year after the government squashed the qualifying income thresholds, figures show.

Student Loans Company (SLC) statistics show 136,800 (44%) of applicants got nothing, against 86,900 (30%) in 2008.

At the other end of the scale, 9,900 fewer got full grants even though the qualifying threshold did not change and more students went to university.

The government said the delays at the SLC had made the figures unreliable.

The extra student numbers this year included more from disadvantaged areas that do not normally send many people on to higher education. Many of them might have been expected to get full grants. So the fall in the number awarded does not make sense.

The general secretary of the University and College Union, Sally Hunt, said the drop was particularly alarming.

“We do not believe the drop is consistent with the number of students applying to university from poorer backgrounds.

“The SLC and the government must urgently investigate if the students who most need financial support are the ones missing out.”

Accuracy

The explanation may lie in the fiasco that has afflicted student maintenance applications, with delays at the SLC.

The statistical release points out that the SLC made interim partial payments to those who had applied for full awards, so that they would have something to be going on with.

The figures that have now been published are not yet as accurate as they might be, statisticians say, because of uncertainties caused by the delays.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills - which oversees higher education - thinks this is the probable explanation.

But the shadow universities and skills secretary, David Willetts said: “The situation at the Student Loans Company just keeps going from bad to worse.

“At a time when many hardworking families are struggling to stay afloat, it is particularly worrying to learn that students from less wealthy backgrounds have been hit hardest of all.

“The government’s new processing system collapsed as soon as it was launched, but even after an independent inquiry ministers still won’t accept responsibility or take action to resolve the problems.

“Top executives have been promoted while hundreds of junior staff are being sacked.”

The SLC revealed earlier that it was cutting 150 posts after restructuring its applications system.

Cuts

Partial grants to students also fell, which was to be expected given the changes in the various income thresholds.

Government ministers altered these in late 2008 after realising that more had qualified for support than they had realised.

The level for entitlement to a maximum grant remained at a family income of £25,000.

But at the top end, qualification for a partial grant was cut from just over £60,000 to just over £50,000.

These latest figures show that the proportion getting partial grants went down from 84,800 (29%) to 67,200 (22%).

The government also cut the number of extra places it was funding universities to offer - and it fines those which over-recruit.

Boston - The state recently announced 43 grants totaling $662,000 for projects that will help farmers in Rochester, Wareham and Carver, to name a few, to mitigate or prevent negative impacts to natural resources from agricultural practices. Four of those grants went to cranberry farmers in Rochester.

Awarded through the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources’ (DAR) Agricultural Environmental Enhancement Program (AEEP), the grants went to farms in the towns of Ashfield, Barnstable, Bernardston, Carlisle, Carver, Conway, Deerfield, Duxbury, East Longmeadow, Egremont, Hadley, Harvard, Harwich, Ipswich, Lakeville, Leominster, Middleboro, Middleborough, Plymouth, Plympton, Rochester, South Carver, Sudbury, Wareham, West Brookfield, West Wareham, Williamsburg and Worthington. These grants will fund projects such as insulation for winter crop storage, photovoltaic systems, and wastewater treatment systems.

“We are pleased to help farmers make their agricultural practices more sustainable,” Massachusetts Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Ian Bowles said.

“In the past decade, the AEEP program has helped Massachusetts farmers address potential impacts on environmental resources and achieve the goal of energy efficiency,” DAR Commissioner Scott Soares said. “I congratulate these recipients who are taking steps toward a more sustainable future.”

AEEP funds water quality programs and practices that promote energy efficiency, water conservation and reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Farmers selected to participate are reimbursed for the approved costs of materials up to $30,000.

AEEP has funded 288 projects statewide since 1999, providing growers and producers more than $3 million to address environmental concerns on their farms. To be eligible for AEEP funds, a grower’s property must consist of at least five contiguous acres of land and be actively devoted to agricultural or horticultural use, have at least three acres in bog production, or have at least 5,000 square feet under greenhouse production. Aquaculture operations must possess a current valid shellfish aquaculture license.

The following local farmers were recently awarded grants for remotely controlled, solar-powered, computer-activated irrigation systems: Willows Cranberries, Plymouth ($9,204); Rodney Fielding, Wareham ($13,367, includes an irrigation pump); Cousins Cranberry LLC, Carver ($8,995); W.J.M. Cranberries, Middleborough ($14,509, includes an irrigation pump); Harju Brothers Cranberry Inc., Plympton ($15,675, includes a pump and sprinkler heads); Doyle Cranberry, Middleborough ($8,439); Jeffrey Erickson, Middleborough ($10,000); Estate of G. Dodge, Middleborough ($8,212); Porter Bog Company, Rochester ($8,995); E.L. Bartholomew, West Wareham ($8,212); Atwood FIT, Plympton ($10,000); Maintain Bog, Rochester ($8,212); Bayside Agricultural, Rochester ($8,212); Piney Wood, Carver ($11,650) Gary Randall, Carver ($26,815); Chop Chaque, Middleborough ($10,000); Highland Cranberry, Lakeville ($6,335, includes funds for dike raising); and Decas Cranberry, Rochester ($10,000).

Other grants awarded to area farmers include: Robert Leronimo, Middleborough ($12,262), for an auto irrigation system and pump; ADM Cranberry LLC, Carver ($10,000) for pop-up irrigation sprinklers; Mayflower Cranberries, Plympton ($7,747) for an automatic irrigation system and pesticide storage; Tilson Bog, South Carver ($5,765) for fuel containment and an engine; Red Eye Cranberry, Duxbury ($25,814) for irrigation lines and an irrigation pump; D. Fernandes Cranberries, Carver ($8,800) for a pump and fuel storage; and Weston Brothers, Carver ($22,189) for irrigation pumps and flumes.

PHOENIX – Arizona has submitted an application for a piece of $4.3 million in competitive federal stimulus grants for education.

Tuesday was the deadline to apply for grants from the program known as “Race to the Top.” Arizona’s application, which seeks $250 million, touts Gov. Jan Brewer’s education agenda, including developing a public database tracking student performance, ensuring strong reading instruction through third grade and ending “social promotion” of students who haven’t mastered grade-level concepts.

The federal funds were included in the $787 billion economic stimulus program that President Barack Obama signed into law soon after taking office.

Obama announced Tuesday he’ll ask Congress for an additional $1.35 billion for the program, which asks states to amend education laws and policies to compete for a share of the money.

Education policy is typically set at the state and local level, but the Race to the Top program is designed as an incentive for states to adopt some of Obama’s education priorities. The president has advocated linking teacher pay to student performance and allowing charter schools to compete with traditional school districts.

More than a dozen states have changed laws to comply with the competition requirements. Arizona laws already complied, but Brewer’s office is recommending that lawmakers make the state more competitive by strengthening a task force on performance-based pay for teachers and principals. She also wants Arizona to hire teachers who have specializations but not necessarily a teaching degree.

“We must stop our gate-keeping and open the doors to all qualified and skilled citizens who want to teach our children,” Brewer said in her State of the State speech last week.

Arizona’s program for performance-based pay, known as Career Ladder, is limited to 28 school districts. John Wright, president of the Arizona Education Association, said the program has been successful and that he supports any effort to expand it.

But he said Brewer’s efforts to expand alternative paths to teacher certification are a waste of time and money.

“I don’t see any data that indicates a need for new programs, given that we just graduated more than 800 midyear graduates from Arizona’s three university programs, and we don’t have jobs for them,” Wright said.

The program has only enough money for a handful of states chosen by Obama’s Education Department. The first of two rounds of award announcements is expected in April, and Obama has said not all states that apply will get money.

Arizona faces a $1.4 billion shortfall in the current $8.3 billion budget and a $3.2 billion gap for the fiscal year starting July 1.

Tewkesbury Borough Council said the scheme would help firms in two areas identified as being important in the current economic climate.

A spokesman said the cash can be used for websites, signage or advertising.

The council cash is topped up with a grant from Corus subsidiary UK Steel Enterprise.

To be eligible to apply the business must have 10 employees or less and be located within Tewkesbury Borough or relocating into the borough.

The road fund is at least one state fund that Gov. Pat Quinn said Sunday officials could borrow from to help restore about $200 million in grants for the neediest college students.

After signing a law giving him the authority to pay for scholarships for about 137,000 low-income students for the spring semester, Quinn said he would identify this week for legislators how many and from which funds the state could borrow.

That pleases Julia Gonzalez, 19, a sophomore at the Illinois Institute of Technology who was one of nearly a dozen local university students and administrators to support Quinn’s efforts at the Thompson Center.

“It means a lot to me to be able to finish my education,” said Gonzalez, a first-generation Mexican-American who is the first person in her father’s family to attend college. Not receiving about $3,000 a semester in a MAP grant Gonzalez usually receives “could mean a lot of things, including me not returning (to school). As for next year, we’re crossing our fingers.”

In the midst of a budget crisis this year, lawmakers and Quinn decided to pay for only about half of the $440 million Monetary Award Program grants, which meant students would be out of the crucial dollars they use to pay for rent, tuition and books halfway through the school year.

After students and university presidents took their pleas to Springfield to restore the grants, Quinn announced a plan to borrow $1 billion from some of the state’s roughly 600 special funds. While the state needs only $205 million to pay for MAP grants for the spring semester, Quinn on Sunday did not say what the remaining roughly $800 million would be used for. He has said the dollars could be used for “unmet needs,” such as the state’s backlog of medical bills.

Any money borrowed from accounts would be repaid in 18 months, Quinn said.

As new revenue flows into Illinois, state officials should earmark those dollars for MAP grants so the state doesn’t find itself in the same situation year after year, said Quinn, who said he also wants to pay for the grants by raising the income tax.

John Dominski, 22, a senior at the Illinois Institute of Technology, said he only recently received about $3,000 in MAP grants for the first semester. That makes him nervous a second-semester grant could be months away, and he’s already had to borrow money from family and friends for bills and food since the school year started.

“It’s something I depend on,” Dominski said of the MAP grant. “This semester got really shaky. I literally could not pay my rent.”

NEW BRITAIN — The Community Foundation of Greater New Britain has awarded $201,960 in second-round grants. The foundation serves a four-town area: Berlin, New Britain, Plainville and Southington.

The foundation, established in 1941 and awards grants on a three-time basis, annually distributes $1 million or more to nonprofit agencies.

Funding traditionally supports a variety of programs and initiatives in arts and humanities, community and economic development, early childhood development, education and health and human services.

About $115,000 is for the foundation’s First Year’s First initiative, a $1 million, five- to-seven-year commitment in early childhood development.